English UK conference attracts ELT professionals from all over the world
Industry professionals from Australia, Italy and Estonia were among over 300 delegates attending English UK's two-day ELT conference in London.
The event focused on the needs of teachers and their managers, with one day aimed at each group and strands on best practice, performance management and wellbeing.
"It went really well. I've had lots of positive comments and feedback and people seem to have enjoyed themselves," said Siobhan Small, English UK's events manager.
Susie Dent returned by popular demand to close the conference for a second year, focusing on etymology and the creation of new words such as testiculation, snaccident, probsolutely and pifflicating. "You can try and chase English as it runs down the road because you can never capture it," she said, explaining her passion for the language and revealing that only two of our best curses are literally Anglo-Saxon.
Reflecting the conference's wide appeal for ELT professionals, the other plenary sessions focused on how to meet your professional aspirations, language teaching in the age of the multilingual turn and recognising, avoiding and dealing with burnout in yourself and your team.
Regular attendee Debbie Collins of ELC Brighton said: "I really enjoy it. I like that you meet up with lots of people, the presentations are really good and the food is really nice. It's also really welcoming – this year I am on my own but I don't feel it." Helen Cherry, academic manager of York Associates, another regular, joked: "Head full of ideas, mouth full of biscuits. It's always interesting – you meet a variety of people with different experiences, it's well-organised and you come away with an action plan."
First-timer Julia Radlinger, young learners academic operations manager of British Study Centres said: "It's been 100 per cent useful. I've talked to people, set up meetings, exchanged business cards – it was good."
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